v08_0076 - CARIA - CNIDOS Hémidrachme

CARIA - KNIDOS

(300-190 BC)

Knidos was a very old city, a great economic, political and cultural centre. In 476 BC it entered the Attico-Delian league and remained there until 412 BC, after the Athenian defeat in Sicily. The coinage of Cnidus seems to resume at the beginning of the 4th century. It was off Cnidus, in 394 BC, that the Athenian Conon, helped by the satrap Pharnabaze, won a great naval victory over the Spartan fleet of Lysander. Aphrodite, who was worshiped at Cnidus, is believed to have inspired Conon. Around 350 BC, Praxiteles executed at the request of the Cnidians a statue of Aphrodite which appears on the coinage until the Hellenistic period, more precisely until the battle of Magnesia in 189 BC..